


I'll Be Joining You Soon

by rychuu



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: (I absolutely regret it), (I'm so sorry Kokichi bby what have I done to you), Also it's hella upsetting I cried while writing this, I don't think I need to say this is chapter 5 spoilers but, Other, absolutely not, do i regret it, it's spoilers, mentions a fancharacter elder twin brother of Kokichi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 08:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16471817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rychuu/pseuds/rychuu
Summary: In Kokichi Ouma's final moments, he speaks to someone he hasn't spoken with in years.





	I'll Be Joining You Soon

Grey. Grey. Grey.

Most of the world he saw around him was the color grey.

Above Kokichi Ouma was the lowered slab of the hydraulic press. Below was a similar metal slab, just as dull and grey while leeching what little heat his body had left to produce. With how he laid, it was hard to see the rest of Exisal Hanger, even if his vision wasn’t already starting to blur.

Fingers loosely gripped at the fabric beneath him–the only splashes of color he couldn’t even see while he was laying on his back.

There was nothing left. This was the end of his life. A dull, colorless world. It was going to be the last thing he saw. Kokichi’s pale, dying body managed to shiver with what little strength it had left.

What a miserable end he was about to have.

“Kokichi? Are you ready?”

That deep, somber voice came from outside him, outside his field of vision. Kaito must have been at the camera and control panel. He could just  _imagine_  that stupid oaf’s miserable face. He imagined a frown that didn’t suit Kaito at all, and tears in his eyes that suited him even less.

Well, maybe he’d like to imagine those things. Kaito hated him, and it was far more likely that he was making an entirely different face, but Kokichi was desperate for someone to care that his life was about to end.

Even with his desperation for that small ounce of comfort, Kokichi scoffed. “Kaito, I want you to think of the question you just asked, and to who, and answer that for yourself.”

Kokichi heard a heavy, shaking sigh. Maybe Kaito was crying after all.

“Jeez… do you have to be such an asshole right now?” Kaito sounded more tired than annoyed. “Are you ready or not?”

Kokichi fell silent, only giving Kaito soft wheezes in response. Kokichi knew what Kaito was asking, and why he was asking it. It wasn’t something Kaito would be able to take back or stop once they started.

The loose grip Kokichi had on the jacket beneath him tightened to be about as strong as he could manage. Without thinking, he closed his eyes and blurted out; “Yeah. Ready as I’ll ever be, at any rate.”

Which wasn’t at all, actually. Kokichi thought about his life, scanning through his memories and regrets. He had a whole list of regrets, piled higher than the world’s tallest mountain and deeper than the deepest sea. Of course he wasn’t ready for his life to end. 

Kokichi’s breath quickened. His heart pounded, surely moving the Strike-9 poison faster in through his system. He didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to die,  _he didn’t want too–_

 _“Wait…!”_  Kokichi cried out, before he could stop himself. “I… I’m not, I changed my mind. I’m not–I’m not ready yet.”

Kokichi couldn’t see how close Kaito was to pressing the two deadly buttons up near that control panel, but he didn’t want to know.

“… Okay. Just, tell me when, then.”

With how Kaito’s voice wavered, Kokichi wasn’t sure if he could keep the resolve to become a blackened. It was such a cruel twist of fate, being forced into a position where you would have to murder someone in order to do the right thing. It was a horrible twist of fate for Kokichi, as the victim himself, to be setting up his own demise for the same cause.

Kokichi laughed, a hollow and empty sound. They both had cruel, twisted fates tied around their fingers, with not much time left to live.

Swallowing down the thought, Kokichi croaked out; “I… need a minute. To myself.”

“Huh?”

“I want to be alone, you  _idiot,”_  Kokichi gritted his teeth. “You know. Make peace with my god or whatever. Privacy. You’ve heard of that, right? So go lock yourself in the bathroom for five m-minutes or something.”

Kokichi hated the way his voice broke, the way that he stuttered. He sounded so weak and pathetic. Yet Kaito didn’t remark on it, didn’t mock him or tell him to man up and accept his horrible fate. Instead, all he heard was a low “Yeah, sure,” and fading footsteps.

Once he couldn’t hear the Kaito anymore, Kokichi sobbed. He laughed. Then, he sobbed again. “M-man… this… this is it,” he whispered to himself. Tears formed in his eyes. “This is… really it. Ehe. This is how I’m going… to die.”

A few weak, pitiful whines broke through his lips, leading the way for more to come. Pathetic whimpers and pathetic tears came all at once, and he couldn’t stop.

“… H-hey, it’s… it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Rochi…?” He didn’t know why he started saying what he did, but it was the only thing that his mind could even focus on. The only thing that brought him any comfort. “Well. I guess if you’re… if you’re really  _there,_  then I’ll just… be joining you soon, right?”

Some sort of sound forced itself past his throat, and he couldn’t identify it as either a laugh or a sob. Something in between. “Or, maybe not. I’ve been a… really awful, terrible person. You’ve seen what I’ve done, right? So I’m probably going to hell. If there… even is a hell. Is there a hell?” A crooked, twisted smile formed on his lips. “Well. I guess you wouldn’t know that. You were always such a… great person. A really great, wonderful, kind-hearted person. You probably… wouldn’t know whether or not if hell exists. Even if you’ve been dead for a long time.”

Kokichi shuddered, and raised his right hand to wipe away the tears from his eyes and face. It was such a futile effort–when he wiped one tear away, two more would replace it. He sobbed, and sniffled.

After a moment of holding his breath, he sighed. “So maybe that’s why I wanted… no, I… needed… to say something. Before I… well. You know.”

Kokichi let his arm fall back down to his side as he stared up at the metal slab. That harsh, metal ceiling that was so close to his body. That machine in which would be his grave.

The twisted smile faded, and more tears formed in Kokichi’s eyes. His vision was far more blurry than before. “Hey… Do you hate me for what I’ve done?”

There was no response. Not that he expected any. He didn’t even hope for one. Yet all the while, the silence was heart wrenching. It was too much and not enough all at once.

“I wouldn’t blame you, if you did,” Kokichi whispered. “I hate myself for what I’ve done. For being so useless in this damn Killing Game. For what I did to Miu and Gonta. For what... I'm doing to Kaito, right now, as we speak. Ehe... I’ve hated myself for a long time before all of this, too.” There was a pause. “I’ve… hated myself ever since you died, actually.” Kokichi closed his eyes again, and his lips were tightly pursed together. “I mean. How could I not? Aha. You’re dead because of me. If I hadn’t been born, if I had died when we were younger, if I didn’t exist… Y-you’d still be alive.”

Kokichi so desperately wanted to hug himself, but he was terrified of moving in the wrong way, and ruining the position of the jacket laying on top of the slab. Instead, heavy sobs echoed in the air and into his ears. “… Y-yeah. You wouldn’t–you wouldn’t have suffered so much, if it wasn’t for me. You could have... ran away if it wasn't for me. I might not have killed you myself, but it… it sure feels like I might as well have. I bet… I bet you already hated me so much for that. For making you suffer. For making you wish you were dead. For making you feel like the only way out was to… to…”

He couldn’t finish his sentence. More broken, weak, yet deep sobs wracked his entire body, and even when his mind thought to try to control his volume, he barely could.

“I’m  _sorry,”_ he whispered through his uncontrollable sobbing. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Kokichi only continued to blubber out incoherent apologies and sob for at least a few minutes. Maybe even longer. His whole body felt weaker and weaker, and the sobbing had only began to make it more difficult to breathe than it had been before.

Finally, Kokichi forced himself to open his eyes again, staring at the grey slab above him. He felt a strange warmth in his left hand, and he briefly wondered if that was what it felt like for someone to hold his hand mere minutes before his death.

“Hey, Kurochi?” Kokichi’s voice cracked. “Do you think… maybe… you could forgive your stupid, terrible, useless, cowardly little brother for all the bad things he’s done? Do you think you could… find it in your heart to still–to still love me, like you did when we were kids–do you think, before I’m dragged away to hell, before I start my eternal suffering and torture… Could you at least pretend to forgive me, and love me?" A few sobs broke his little plea apart. "I know I don’t deserve it, b-but… We were always together, ever since we were born, until you… and I just want… I… I just…”

Kokichi fell apart all over again, unable to control his weeping. He didn’t know why begging for such a thing meant so much to him. He wasn’t even sure if he was able to be heard by the souls of the dead. Yet he begged, silently and with all of his dying heart, that he could have that request fulfilled.

Soon his crying became silent, and it was only a matter of time before he heard Kaito’s voice once again; “Kokichi. It’s been five minutes.”

Kokichi blinked away the rest of his tears with surprise. He hadn’t even heard Kaito’s footsteps as he came back in. Not that it mattered, with how tired and dead he sounded, Kokichi couldn’t bring himself to make a remark on it or even tease him one final time.

Kokichi drew in a deep breath. “… Okay. I’m ready now.”

He heard Kaito’s footsteps again, and as he heard him climb back up to the control panel, he squeezed his eyes shut. Then, the loud roaring of the hydraulic press drowned out every other possible sound he may or may not have heard.

……………

………

…

Kaito found himself staring at the bloody red mess that splattered the hydraulic press and floor all around it, nausea settling in his stomach more and more each and every time he was viciously reminded that he was staring at the remains of Kokichi Ouma.

Kokichi Ouma, the Ultimate Supreme Leader. A boy who died just as human and broken as the rest of them. A living, breathing human being he had just murdered with his own two hands.

But Kaito had a plan to carry out. Silently, he tore the hydraulic press’ power chord, collected the camera, and settled himself in the untouched exisal with Kokichi’s improvised script in his hands.

His eyes closed, and he just barely resisted the urge to vomit.

With a shaky exhale, Kaito looked up at the ceiling of the exisal, but he was looking past that. Beyond the hanger, beyond the dead earth, and into the stars above.

“… I don’t normally believe in ghosts, or whatever, but–” he started before he could stop, his voice just barely above a whisper. “Just in case you… exist, or something… I don’t know who you are, or what you meant to him, or if what he said was true, but… I get the feeling that you wouldn’t hate him like he thinks you would. So make sure he knows that, okay? Ram it through his god damn thick head if you have to.”

The only thing Kaito was met with was a bitter silence, and the uncertainty if his own little prayer was heard and accepted or not. 

"... Please."

He could only hope it was.


End file.
